Managing the Conversation Inbox

In this article, we will cover the basics of managing your Conversation inbox across lines and users. It will focus on claiming ownership of conversations and understanding the information displayed within the inbox. Some of the functions of our Conversations queue are described in more detail in the articles Searching & Filtering Conversations and Creating New Conversations.

Conversations are one of the best ways for you to engage with your customer base. They give you the ability to instantly engage in a format that delivers information directly to the palm of your customer's hand. In the Textel Platform, we provide you with the tools to manage your Conversation queue or inbox. Our Conversation Inbox allows you to view existing conversations across lines and contacts, respond to incoming messages, create new conversations, or simply review the conversation history for a specific contact.

Line-Based Routing

The ability for your users to see conversations within the Conversation Inbox is based on their Line Access. Admin users by default have access to all lines on the account. Standard users however, only have access to lines assigned to them by an Admin. To control which of your users can see which conversations, you can use lines to setup line-based routing. This will allow you to route certain lines to certain users and control who can engage in conversations across your business lines.

Conversation Inbox

The Conversation Inbox gives you access to the real-time and historical views of conversations across your account. Visit the Searching & Filtering Conversations article to get a breakdown on how to narrow your inbox to find specific conversations. As you look at the inbox, there is some information that can be helpful in determining the state of a given conversation.

Card States

There are a few different states for the conversation cards within the inbox. Each visual treatment indicates information about that conversation.

  1. Unclaimed = The conversation card will be an elevated card with a white background. (NOTE: A claim button will display unless the conversation is already closed.)
  2. Owned/Claimed = The conversation card will be gray and not elevated.
  3. Selected = A green outline on the card, indicating it is the conversation you are viewing.

Conversation Card Information

On each conversation card within the inbox view, we will display contextually helpful information, based off of what we have. Our ability to display some of the information depends on whether the information is available. 

For each conversation card, if we have all of the information we will display:

  • Contact’s First and Last Name
  • Contact’s Mobile Number
  • Name of Outbound Line 
  • Last message timing with that Contact
  • Indicator and name of Agent who has the conversation claimed
  • Avatar circle will display the Contact’s initials if we have it, otherwise it will display a default user icon

Managing Notifications

Within the platform, we provide two types of notifications: inbox notifications and browser notifications. Inbox notifications will display when you are actively using the Conversation Inbox and will display at the bottom of the page. 

Browser notifications will serve a notification regardless of if you are actively on the browser tab or not. As long as you have our platform open and are logged in, you would receive a notification for:

  • A brand new conversation comes into the account
  • A new message in a conversation that you do not have opened
  • A new message in a conversation that you have open

We have the option to enable browser notifications by going to your My Profile page and enabling Browser Notifications. 

Managing Conversation Assignments

There are several ways to manage how conversations are assigned within the Conversation Inbox. Users can passively view conversations regardless of ownership, allowing them to review existing conversations for context or supervisory reasons. Taking ownership of a conversation allows the user to actually engage and will automatically update the inbox to denote ownership of the conversation to other users. 

Below are the options for adjusting ownership of a given conversation within the inbox.

Claiming - As a user, you can only claim a conversation that is not already assigned. Visibly this will be signaled by the display of a "Claim" button on the conversation card. Once you click the Claim button, the conversation will be assigned to you and the inbox will be updated across all user accounts to reflect the assignment.

Releasing to Queue - Depending on the circumstance, there may be a reason to relinquish ownership of a specific conversation without directly assigning it to another user. In this case, you can choose to "Release to Queue" which will remove you as the assigned user and put the conversation back into the inbox as unassigned, ready for another user to claim.

Transferring - In the event that you need to transfer the conversation to another user, you can use the "Transfer" option. This will pull up an option for you to search for another user who has the right access to transfer the conversation assignment to. Upon transfer, we will publish data in the conversation history, only viewable to account users, acknowledging the transfer for historical purposes.

Closing a Conversation - It is best practice to close a conversation when the specific goal of the conversation with the customer has been accomplished. This not only helps ensure that the inbox is highlighting conversations that are still open and actively engaging, but will also improve overall platform performance. Once you and the customer have come to a resolution within the conversation, you can click the "Close Conversation" button. NOTE: This will not prevent new and future conversations with that contact. It simply ensures that the current status of the conversation is accurate, and all conversation history is retained when the conversation is re-opened.


Conversation Session Auto-Close Feature

Closing a conversation is an important practice to keep our platform functioning optimally. When a conversation is concluded and its goals are achieved, it is essential to close it to facilitate organization and efficiency within the inbox. We encourage Admin users to make use of this tool, especially during busy times, to ensure conversations are closed and the platform continues to operate at its peak performance levels. Maintaining an organized inbox through closing conversations will not only enhance your productivity but also improve the overall user experience.

To use this feature an Admin user will navigate to the Manage Account page and find the Conversation Session Auto- Close feature on the left hand side. Enter in the box how many minutes you would like the platform to wait before closing the conversation, then  check the Enabled box and save details. Admin users can go back at anytime and disable the feature by unchecking the Enabled box and saving again. 



Blocking Incoming Messages from a Contact

To block messages from a contact in the Textel Platform you will want to open click on the edit button and scroll down to check the box to "Block incoming messages from this contact" and then save. You can also edit the contact name to "Do not message" if you would like. 

NOTE: Currently there is no way to block incoming messages from a contact in our Meevo 2 integration.

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